Mr Welch looked at her very directly and seriously. ‘Of course we do have to be extremely cautious in these cases. But I honestly think, Lady Morell, that under the circumstances –’ he paused – ‘keeping this baby here any longer is bordering on the ludicrous.’
Phaedria smiled. ‘All right. We’ll go.’
So now they were going, and it was a long journey. At least twelve hours door to door, even with Pete meeting her at Heathrow, and it would seem much longer with the time change. She would have to feed Julia at least three times on the plane, change her, wash her; it wouldn’t be easy. Phaedria was terrified.
British Airways, who were flying her home, were very reassuring. There were excellent facilities for mothers and babies on their planes, especially for first-class passengers. All the hostesses had some nursing knowledge. Was the baby in any way unwell? No? Then there really was nothing for her to worry about.
Supposing though, said Phaedria, the baby became ill on the plane. Then what? Was there a resident doctor?
Not exactly on the plane, said the spokesperson carefully, grateful that her caller could not see her face. Of course there very often was a doctor amongst the passengers.
Could she tell yet if that was a certainty?
No, she couldn’t. Was Lady Morell’s doctor aware that the baby was coming on the flight? He was. And he was quite happy about it? Then really there seemed no cause for alarm.
In the end Phaedria had to accept everybody’s judgement and prepare to take Julia home.
She had spent most of the week thinking about Michael Browning. She found it rather alarming how much she had focused on him. He filled her head and her heart, and she had hardly a thought that had not contained him. What was that Quaker expression that had always charmed her? Thee pleasures me. Yes, that was what Michael did to her, he pleasured her, made her feel joyful and warmed and safe and almost physically cared for, he induced a kind of charm and delight into everything, life was heightened and lightened when he was there, and bleaker and darker when he was not. She liked too the fact that she clearly amused and delighted him; that he made her feel interesting, and important, and – and oh, God, yes, and something else too. He made her think with quite appalling relentlessness and vividness of sex. She was not sure quite how; it was partly the way he looked at her, the way his eyes flicked over her body sometimes, the way he smiled, not just into her eyes, her face, but suddenly disarmingly as his eyes were resting on her breasts, her legs, her stomach as though these places inspired such thoughts of joy and delight that he could not contain himself, could not remain solemn; partly the blatant sensuality contained in his eyes, in the way he moved, even the way he spoke, certainly the way he laughed; partly the sudden amused comment, the half serious observation that revealed a strong sexual focus; but if she had tried to explain it to anyone who had never met Michael Browning she would have failed utterly. Other women had tried in the past and failed also.
Well, it was not to be. Her sadness, her regret, the physical ache he had induced in her for him paled into insignificance at the thought of Roz and what she would do to her if she discovered that she and Michael were lovers. Had even thought of being lovers.
She had been afraid of Roz, even when she had been married to Julian. Now she was, quite literally, physically terrified, and she set the concept aside as determinedly, as irrevocably as if it had been some food, some substance that would injure her, damage her fatally.
She was also terrified at the thought of returning to the minefield that was the company. She dreaded to think what Roz might have engineered in her absence, whose confidence she had gained, who she had persuaded to regard Phaedria as a half-witted usurper into the company’s power structure. The temptation to sell out, to let her have it all, to go, was fierce; and yet she never allowed herself seriously to consider it. Julian had left her half the company, and he had left her Julia, although he had not known it, and she had to safeguard the one for the other. She could not betray what limited trust he had had in her. She owed him that at least.
At least now she felt well; strong, ready for battle. On the other hand, she knew she would never again be able to fight with the same total commitment. She would have Julia to worry about, to get home to, to be with; she wasn’t going to have her growing up wondering who she was. However good the nanny, however efficient her staff, Julia needed her; and she was going to have her. Delegation was the key; she must find it and put it in the lock.
She had done a lot of thinking in the long often tedious days in the hospital and in the quiet evenings in her bungalow. If this nonsense was ever to be resolved, simply trying to pull everything in two pieces was not the answer. There had to be some lateral input of thought: the trouble was that on this subject at least, Roz only thought vertically.
It seemed hopeless; unless one or the other of them managed to find Miles and manipulate him into cooperation. And that seemed increasingly unlikely.
Towards six o’clock, Roz suddenly remembered, through the haze of misery and rage, and several extremely large whiskies, that she was supposed to be meeting Michael at the Algonquin. Well, that was all right. She could talk to him there as well as anywhere. It might enliven things a little for the other people there. It was a pretty dull place a lot of the time. She called out to Franco who had come in and was working in the kitchen, and told him to get her a cab.
‘You won’t get one now, Mrs Emerson. It’s rush hour.’
‘Well, I have to get to the Algonquin. And I’m not going to walk.’
‘Would you like me to drive you? I can get the car round in five minutes.’
Roz looked at him, thinking. Walking might not be a bad idea. It was only ten blocks, and she needed a clear head. The traffic would be appalling, and she would have to sit and listen to Franco’s running commentary on the deteriorating condition of New York all the way.
‘No, it’s all right, Franco, I think after all I’ll walk. The traffic will be terrible.’
‘All right, Mrs Emerson. Will you and Mr Browning be coming back here for dinner?’
‘I’m afraid I don’t have the faintest idea,’ she said, making it plain that the decision was hers, rather than Michael’s, where they dined. ‘I haven’t decided what I want to do this evening yet.’
She liked putting Franco down; he was so bloody devoted to Michael, so eager to impress upon her the democratic nature of their relationship. Roz thought there was only one place for servants and that they should know precisely where it was.
Michael was sitting at a table in the Blue Bar and drinking bourbon when she arrived. He saw her standing in the doorway and his heart lurched. She was difficult, she was overbearing and monstrously selfish and unreasonable, but she was very very sexy. And she was plainly in feisty mood. Her eyes were brilliant and snapping, her face was alive, her entire body spelt out energy, power, resolution. He smiled to himself.
‘Hi, darling! Come and sit down. What would you like to drink?’
‘A scotch whisky on the rocks,’ said Roz to the waiter, ‘a large one.’
Michael looked at her quickly. She didn’t usually drink spirits, and certainly not in large quantities. He noticed suddenly that she was flushed, and that her voice was slightly odd.
‘Are you OK?’
‘Oh, yes,’ she said and her voice was just a little too loud and harsh. ‘I’m absolutely fine. Never better. But then I always did enjoy good health. As you know. I’m not someone to cave under at the least strain. Would you say, Michael?’
‘No,’ he said, and there was puzzlement in his voice. ‘No, I wouldn’t. It’s that good British stock you come from, I guess.
‘Not necessarily,’ she said. ‘Not at all. I could name a few examples of British stock who are pretty damn feeble. Who take almost two bloody months recovering from having a baby. Who sit about whingeing and whining and expecting the world to come running to them, from thousands of miles away if need be.’ She drained her glass, leant back in h
er chair and called to the waiter. ‘Bring me another of these, will you?’ Then she turned back to Michael. ‘So how was my dear stepmother last weekend, Michael? Sitting up and taking notice yet? Or still lying back on her pillows like some pathetic Victorian heroine, trawling sympathy from anyone in sight?’
‘Ah,’ he said quietly. ‘So that’s it.’
‘Yes,’ said Roz. ‘That is it. And how was it, Michael? How did you find her? Pretty damn ready for you, I would say. I bet she’s like a bitch on heat underneath that fey, little-girl charm of hers. She pulled my father into her bed fairly fast. Well, there’s no fool like an old fool, they say. You, I would have thought, might have been expected to be a little more sensible. I was obviously woefully wrong.’
‘Roz, don’t be absurd.’
‘Absurd! In what way am I being absurd? Perhaps you expect me to be delighted that you went sick-visiting? And saw fit not to tell me. I would say that tells its own story, Michael. Or am I to believe that you simply gave her some grapes and admired the baby? Now that really would be absurd. Deeply absurd. I mean, I don’t admire her style myself but I am told she is considered not exactly ill to look upon. And you are, by your own admission, frustrated at the moment. And I daresay she is – or rather was – too, by Christ, although God knows how many lovers she might have had before or after my father died. I still don’t believe that child is his.’
‘Roz, you are making several serious mistakes,’ said Michael quietly. He was still sitting quite easily in his chair, watching her, listening to her; the fact that the entire room was doing the same bothered him not in the least.
‘Really? What mistakes am I making? I hope you’re not going to try and tell me I’m mistaken in thinking you have been in her bed, and in her so elegant personage. She must be a hell of an easy lay, and so conveniently far from home and from anyone who might have known or disturbed either of you. How was it, Michael? Is she good in bed? Does she have any clever tricks you hadn’t met before?
‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said. ‘Shall we continue this discussion at home?’
‘Oh, I like it here,’ she said. ‘Where is my second drink? Waiter! I asked you for another whisky. Bring it over here, would you?’
‘Rosamund, he isn’t going to. Leave him out of this. It isn’t his fault, poor guy.’
‘No, but it’s yours,’ she cried, quite loudly, her face by now contorted with fury. ‘It’s absolutely yours. How dare you go down there, to California, to her, seeing her, screwing her, while I was safely thousands of miles away in London? How dare you?’
‘I did not screw her,’ he said quietly. ‘I didn’t touch her.’
‘Oh, yes, and I’m the President of the United States. Don’t give me that, Michael. Don’t insult me any more than you have done already.’
‘I’m trying not to,’ he said, and there was an edge of searing anger suddenly in his voice that quietened even her.
‘I did go to see Phaedria, yes, and the baby. I went because I was over there already, on business, and it seemed like a nice idea. I like Phaedria, she’s charming and agreeable, which is more than I can say for you a great deal of the time. And she’s had a tough time, to which you have contributed greatly. I did not, however, go to bed with her. I might well have been tempted to, not having had a great deal of carnal pleasure lately, thanks to your good self and your insane obsession with that company of yours. But I did not, and it was much to my credit and to hers that the only physical contact I experienced over the whole weekend was with her very charming baby. Who incidentally greatly resembles your father. I only hope it grows up into something more agreeable than his other daughter. I’m going home now. Perhaps you’d like to settle the check.’
He walked out, leaving the room entirely silent and Roz frozen to her chair, her face ashen, her eyes huge and brilliant, and an icy fear taking grip on her heart.
Phaedria decided on that, one of her few last afternoons in California, to go and visit Father Kennedy again. She had no real intention of asking him any more questions, she simply thought she owed it to him to visit him once more, to explain why no more money had come into the refuge yet, and to show him Julia. She had only taken her out a few times; she had bought a folding pram for the car, and would drive her out to Griffith Park or to the Palisades, and push her up and down carefully and proudly, pretending – wishing, even – that she was just one more mother, with one more baby, and that she had no more serious worries in the world than when she should consider mixed feeding, or whether the sun might be just a little too hot, despite the pram parasol, for Julia to be out in.
She drove down to Santa Monica, parked outside the refuge, and lifted Julia out of the car. Father Kennedy was sitting talking to one or two of his flock; he smiled as she walked towards him and stood up.
‘Well now, this is a most welcome new visitor. I thought you had gone back to England.’
‘No, Father, I hadn’t. She took me by surprise. I’ve been here ever since that day.’
‘Well, and if I had only known I would have come to visit you. Now this is a beautiful baby. What is her name?’
‘She is called Julia. After her father.’
‘That is a lovely name. And how old would she be now, Miss Julia?’
‘Oh, two months. But I couldn’t take her out before, she was very premature, she nearly died.’
‘And you’ve been alone here all this time, have you? That is a very sad thing.’
‘Oh,’ she said, ‘not quite alone. I’ve had a lot of visitors. Flying out from England.’
‘Well, you must be a very popular young lady. That’s a long way to come sick-visiting.’
‘I’m very lucky,’ she said, almost surprised to find that she was. ‘I have a very nice family.’
‘There is nothing better, no greater gift a person can have, than a good family. Next to God,’ he added hastily, lest the Almighty might be listening and taking offence.
‘Oh, it is. And I never really had one before.’
‘Did you not?’
‘No. Did you come from a big family, Father Kennedy?’
‘I did indeed. I was number eleven and there were two more after me. My mother did her best for the Church,’ he added with a twinkle in his faded blue eyes. ‘And I did my best for her.’
‘Did any of her other sons go into the priesthood?’
‘Not one. And most of them have died now, but there are many many nieces and nephews and great-nieces and nephews – but what am I thinking of, come and sit down, and let me give you a cup of tea.’
Phaedria followed him inside and sat down, holding Julia tenderly against her shoulder as she sipped her iced tea. She had grown very fond of it as a drink since she had been in California.
‘What I really came to see you about, Father, apart from showing you my baby, was to say that I’m sorry I haven’t made any arrangements yet about money for you, for the refuge, but I just haven’t been able to. Not being at home. But I haven’t forgotten, and I didn’t want you to think I’d forgotten.’
‘I thought no such thing,’ he said. ‘But it was good of you to come just the same. May I hold your baby a moment?’
‘Of course,’ she said, and handed her over, looking at him and smiling as he held the baby gently, stroking her tiny dark head, patting her small back.
‘I love babies,’ he said. ‘It is my only regret about being a priest, that I was denied this pleasure, that of fatherhood. But then, of course, I have known far more children, been involved with them, watched them growing up than if I had had my own. So maybe it was all for the best.’
‘Maybe.’
‘Well now, have you found that young man yet?’
‘No, Father, we haven’t. I hear he was traced as far as Miami, but now he has simply vanished. Nobody knows where he is. My – that is, one of the other members of the family is still trying to trace him with a private detective, but what with the baby and so on, I haven’t given it much thought lately.’
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br /> ‘And Mrs Kelly, the grandmother, do you know anything of her? Is she well?’
‘I believe she is well, but apparently a little – well, confused,’ said Phaedria carefully, raking desperately through her mind for a positive aspect of the news C. J. had brought, via Henry Winterbourne, of a pair of crazy old women struggling to keep Miles from his rightful inheritance.
‘Well now, that would explain why she has never answered my letters,’ said Father Kennedy with a sigh. He looked sad suddenly and very old.
Phaedria put out her hand and touched his arm. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘Oh, well now, that is the way of the world. We are none of us growing younger. Did you find nothing up at the house?’ he asked after a moment’s pause.
‘Not – not really,’ she said, ‘it was all locked up. I just found – oh, you know, some of Miles’ toys – his bike and his skate board and so on.’
‘Oh, he loved that skate board,’ said Father Kennedy. ‘He used to park it outside the church when he came to mass. He would have brought it in with him if his mother had allowed it.’
‘What – what was his mother like?’ asked Phaedria carefully, reaching out, taking the baby back from him, not looking at him. ‘I mean was she a nice person, was she clever, what was she actually like?’
‘She was a very nice person and very brave,’ said Father Kennedy. ‘Very brave indeed. Not just when she was so ill, but after her husband died. That wasn’t easy for her.’
‘She must have felt so alone,’ said Phaedria, ‘I do know a little bit how she felt.’
Old Sins Page 91
